


in sickness & health

by Ashling



Series: i couldn't stop & i didn't want to [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, a gay a day keeps the sadness at bay, five drabbles + one 1000 word piece, when I say drabble I mean exactly 100 words dammit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 17:03:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15756027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: five times Grace doesn't get to see the second room, and one time she does





	in sickness & health

**Author's Note:**

  * For [takingoffmyshoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/takingoffmyshoes/gifts).



> I am sick and queer and I Require Tea
> 
> where is my gun-toting wife???

1.

"Polly thinks I'm lying, doesn't she." Although the slightly open door reveals only a slice of Lizzie, it's enough. Her hair is tangled, her breath stinks, and there's a stain on the shoulder of her dress. It's not a pretty picture, but a glint in Lizzie's eye defies Grace to pity her. "Tell her I'd rather be making money in the shop than throwing up."

"I'll tell her," says Grace. She lingers.

"What?"

For once, Grace doesn't lie her way in. She doesn't want it like that. "Do you need anything?"

Lizzie hesitates, then hardens. "No." She closes the door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.

"Can I come in?"

Again, the door only opens enough to show Lizzie's left eye. "Why?"

Grace lifts the jar. "Tea."

"I already have tea." But Lizzie lets her in.

Grace makes straight for the kitchenette and puts the kettle on, not bothering to make conversation. Lizzie sits down on the bed, the only soft piece of furniture in the tiny flat, and promptly falls asleep, wrapped in a blanket and leaning against the headboard. Gingerly, Grace approaches her. Is Lizzie really asleep? Yes. Grace tugs the blanket up a few inches. She doesn't want Lizzie's shoulders to get cold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.

Grace tells herself that conversation with Lizzie is the easiest way to learn about the Shelby family. It's business. Any pleasure is merely incidental. If she likes the shape of Lizzie's eyes when she laughs...and oh, she does. She enjoys the stories of Ada organizing neighborhood-wide hide and go seek, of Arthur drawing on walls he shouldn't, of Tommy masterminding a candy shop theft—

"Who's Tommy?"

Lizzie stumbles to the bathroom and Grace follows close behind. She holds Lizzie's hair as Lizzie throws up.

"They hung him," Lizzie says, afterwards. "We don't talk about it."

"Okay,” Grace says softly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.

"I made you some eggs."

"No. Not hungry."

"They're soft boiled. Good for your throat."

"I'll only throw them up."

"You might not. You haven't thrown up in hours now."

Lizzie opens one baleful eye. "Can't you let me die in peace?"

Grace's stomach lurches. This isn't the first time it has occurred to her that Lizzie might be in danger, but it's the first time she's heard anyone talk about it out loud. Even as a joke.

"If you don't sit up right now," Grace says, voice icy, "I will force-feed you like a  _ fucking _ goose."

Lizzie sits up.

 

 

 

 

 

5.

“Wait,” Lizzie croaks. “I almost forgot. I got you a present.”

She points at a white envelope lying on the kitchen table that has Grace’s name written on it in looping cursive.

“It’s a present for me, really,” Lizzie says. “So I don’t have to get the door every time you come over.”

Grace puts the ring of keys back in the envelope and tucks the envelope away into her purse for safekeeping. Under different circumstances, this would be sweet; under these circumstances, it just hurts. Lizzie can barely walk now.

Grace conjures up a smile. “Thank you,” she says.

 

 

 

 

 

 

+1

Lizzie's tiny flat looks normal; the pale pink wallpaper is peeling a little, the red blanket is shoved to the foot of the bed, the mug is hanging from its peg on the wall, the one big window is still inexplicably showing smears and fingerprints. But Lizzie is nowhere to be found. 

Grace drops her purse and looks everywhere. In cupboards, under the bed, behind the curtains. It's like she's ten again, except that she never felt frantic like this until she was fifteen. On the verge of calling Campbell and demanding information, she finally opens the door to the closet, feels around in the clothes with her hands, and finds that the closet has no back.

"Lizzie?"

"Mm?"

There's a little click, and then the dim light of a lamp reveals a tiny room behind the closet, not even big enough for Lizzie to stretch out in. It’s half taken up by dirty laundry, half by Lizzie curled up in a blanket that Grace has never seen before. 

"Had to have a room the clients wouldn't see," Lizzie says.

"I see," says Grace. And no, she doesn't, but she instinctively understands the deep desire to have something of your own, even when sharing yourself is the core trick of your profession. She touches one of the papers pinned to the wall, squints. The sentences look like scraps. The doodles are very bad and mostly floral. "What is this, poetry?"

"Fuck off," Lizzie mumbles.

Grace makes herself a spot to sit by moving the heap of dirty laundry around and settles by Lizzie's head, knees pulled up to her chest.

"If I fuck off," Grace says, "Who will let the doctor in? You don't look like you're walking."

Lizzie cracks open one eye. "What doctor is this?"

"Smith."

"Otto Smith?"

"No, Harry."

"Mm." For a moment, with her eyes closed, it appears that Lizzie has drifted off again, but then she adds, "I'm glad it's not Otto. I never wanted a john to be the one that killed me."

Grace is stroking Lizzie's hair now. She can't help it. It's too tangled to comb her fingers through, but she can run her palm over it, and that's something. "Doctors aren't killers," she says. "It's in the Hippocratic oath."

"The what?"

"They have to promise not to kill people. And this one gave my mother a couple more years when everyone else said she'd be in a box by the end of the week. You’ll be fine."

"Really?"

“He took a train from London for you, so be polite to him when he gets here, all right? Not everyone can handle you like I do."

"Not everyone?" Lizzie smiles faintly. "No one, more like. Where'd you get the money?"

"Don't worry about it."

“I always knew you were secretly a rich girl."

Grace can't decide whether to laugh or to cry. “Actually, I robbed a bank. John and Arthur shot the tellers, and I picked the safe.”

"You're a criminal now too, is it?"

"Mm-hm."

“Liar.” Lizzie sounds happy, though.

The truth, of course, is somewhere in-between. Grace was a rich girl, but that’s been gone for some time now. 

She called Harry at nine in the morning, accepted Campbell's proposal at nine-thirty, and had the ring sold and the cash in hand by eleven. Grace accepts that she could be accurately called many things, most of them unflattering, but  _ helpless _ is not one of them. As for the engagement, she’ll burn that bridge when she comes to it. For now, there is Lizzie, pressing her head into Grace's hand like a needy cat.

"Will he be here soon?" Lizzie asks, after a while.

"In half an hour, I think, if his train runs on time."

"Well, he can't examine me here."

The resulting travel is not at all comfortable; even skeletal with sickness, Lizzie's long limbs make for a lot of weight. Grace ends up hooking her arms under Lizzie's and dragging her through the closet and across the floor until they get to the bed.

Lizzie watches Grace's struggling with significant amusement, and seeing Grace eyeing her and then the bed, trying to strategize, Lizzie breaks out into a real smile. "Moment of truth, rich girl," she says. 

It takes so much effort that she grunts halfway through, but Grace manages to lift her. Lizzie wheeze-laughs the whole time.

When it's done, Grace flops down next to Lizzie. "You should eat less," she says. Lizzie laughs harder.

Eventually, Lizzie's head is on Grace's lap, and Grace is singing, because what else is there to do? She runs through all the old classics, hoping that they will put Lizzie to sleep, but Lizzie's all tense with the doctor coming, so it doesn't work.

"Who taught you how to sing?" Lizzie says, after a while.

"My parents. They taught me all the practical skills in the world: cooking, singing, shooting, lying."

"Singing is practical?"

"I think it is. My mother used to say that any woman who could sing  _ Red is the Rose _ was a woman that could make anyone fall in love with her."

"Your mum was right."

The way that Lizzie looks at her as she says that demands an answer, but to Grace's relief (or is that disappointment?) there's a knock on the door.

Harry is quick and competent, and as usual, exudes a warm smell, like he's stepped out of a bakery. He makes Grace feel at ease, which is not something that can be said for any other man on the face of the earth. He examines Lizzie, accepts the cash, and promises to be back in a few days. When he leaves, he leaves two jars of pills and written instructions behind.

"So?" Lizzie says, as Grace scans the paper and tries to commit the instructions to memory.

Grace is proud that her voice doesn't waver when she says, "You're not gonna die."

"Good." Lizzie rolls over, making room. "Come back to bed."

Grace does.

 

 


End file.
